What the grant actually pays for
2 July 2026
It is £7,500, it goes to the installer rather than to you, and there are two conditions people are regularly surprised by.
The grant covers an air source heat pump replacing a fossil fuel heating system in England and Wales. The money is paid to the installer, so you never handle it. On a quote it appears as a deduction, which is why a quote that shows the grant as something you claim later is worth a second look.
The first surprise is that the property needs a valid EPC without outstanding recommendations for loft or cavity wall insulation. If those recommendations are on your certificate, they have to be addressed first. That is usually a good thing for the heating system anyway, but it changes the order of the work.
The second is that it is per property, not per system. Replacing a second system in the same house later does not attract a second grant.
The application is ours to make and ours to get right. If an installer asks you to do it, that is a reasonable question to ask them about.
Why most heat pumps are sized wrong
Oversizing is the industry default, and it is the reason the unit is loud, cycles constantly and costs more to run than the brochure said.
The radiators you actually have to change
Not all of them, and not none of them. Both of those answers are sales positions rather than engineering ones.